Spirit 7
by L.C. Li
Summary: There were once seven billion people in the world. Now, there are six. — ZombieApocalypse!AU.
1. Obituary

TADASHI HAMADA IS STANDING in a warehouse. It is early in the morning, cold, when frost is just beginning to break by stray beams of daylight and the air cuts through fabric and skin to the very marrow of his bones.

(•–•)

**A NOTE**

Tadashi Hamada is holding a pipe in his hand.

It is dripping with blood.

(•–•)

There is a writhing shadow at his feet—a miserable, painful blob of mutilated flesh that reaches for him with a wet moan pealing from its formless lips.

Tadashi steps back. His breath is rapid and his heart rate more so; his face is twisted into angles and directions that it never has before, and his limbs tremble as he raises the pipe over his head, ready to deal the final blow. The soles of his shoes slick against the blood-coated cement as throws the pipe down with every ounce of strength.

It hits. Directly, efficiently, sickeningly.

The figure flops against the ground with a resounding squelch—like watermelon pounded against iron. Tadashi drops the pipe and crouches over the corpse, letting the dull, metallic ring pulse through his eardrums to the frozen tips of his toes. Blood swirls around the kneecaps of his patchwork jeans, dying his skin crimson.

"I'm sorry," he chokes, fingers curling into the well-worn black fabric on the corpse before him. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry."

Using a gun would've been merciful. But he didn't have that privilege. No one did.

(•–•)

**TADASHI HAMADA**

The deadliest enemy in an apocalypse is not the zombie.

It is the one you trust.

(•–•)

It's fifteen minutes after Tadashi leaves the warehouse. He packs dirt over his knees and scrapes it away. The blood looks older, worn; it'll blend in with all the other stains and tears on his jeans; it won't draw suspicion. At least, that's what he hopes.

He slips back to the main path: the bumpy, dilapidated remains of a highway, bathing in the slim remains of blue light before it must bake in the beating rays of the sun at high noon. Nothing surrounds it but weeds and dead field. That, and the corpses.

Hiro is sitting on one, spinning some kind of improvised metal tool in his hands as he stares distantly down the road. He used to be terrified of corpses. Now, they don't even phase him.

"Morning, Hiro," Tadashi says with a pasted smile.

"Morning," Hiro says. The corpse twitches beneath him. He smashes its skull with his tool and it lies still.

Tadashi rummages through the fields for a moment before he finally finds his trusty bag.

"Sleep well?" he calls to Hiro.

"As never," Hiro snickers, leaping to his feet. "But guess what I found?"

"What?"

"I told you to guess."

"A purple platypus."

"That's a really bad guess."

"You didn't ask for a good one."

Hiro rolls his eyes and sticks out his lower lip like an ordinary petulant 14-year-old kid. "Fine. Follow me."

And Tadashi does.

(•–•)

**HIRO HAMADA**

Their parents turned when he was four.  
He killed them to protect Tadashi.

But he doesn't remember,  
and Tadashi will never tell him.

(•–•)

Hiro leads him further down the highway, where the broken asphalt begins its faded gradient to crimson. They're maybe down a half mile when he turns abruptly off the road, leading Tadashi into a segment of field where the grass stretches above their heads. Tadashi keeps his eyes straight ahead and ignores the crunching bones beneath his feet.

"You ready?" Hiro says, pulling to a stop.

Tadashi smiles. "Ready to be disappointed?" he teases.

Hiro slaps him on the back. "Ready to be amazed!" he crows, throwing his arm to brush a large section of grass aside.

A bulky pick up truck is collapsed on one side, deflated wheels sagging against the remnants of its underside. More paint is chipped than remaining and none of its windows are intact. Tadashi peers inside and is gifted with the smell of year-old cheeseburgers and a 36-ounce soda that is certainly insect paradise.

"Gee, I'm overwhelmed," Tadashi says wryly.

"This isn't even the best part," Hiro chirps. "C'mon, help me lift her up. This baby'll take us all the way to Las Vepporo."

Tadashi sighs, but stoops down obligingly. "This thing? It's busted, Hiro. Where can we even find any new wheels?"

"Won't need any," Hiro says. "Three, two, one, heave!"

Tadashi grunts, righting the truck upwards. Somehow, it's much lighter than he thought it would be. "Wait… is this…?"

"A carbon-fiber hovercraft with a solar-charged hydroelectric engine, disguised as a rickety old truck?" Hiro smirks and throws the door open. "What would give you the notion?"

"C'mere, bonehead," Tadashi cries, grabbing Hiro around the neck with one arm. Hiro yelps, clawing blindly behind him.

"Stop it!"

"Unbelievable," Tadashi says. "You didn't even have to try, did you?"

Hiro worms out of his grip and jumps into the car, tossing rotting food and decapitated limbs out to the field with all the tact of a toddler. "I can't help it if I'm so attractive," he drawls with a playful smirk.

Tadashi lounges against the hood of the truck as Hiro slides beneath it with his makeshift tool. "I find it hard to believe that someone would just leave this here."

Hiro only shrugs. "Good for us. Did you find Aunt Cass?"

Tadashi sighs. "You know how she gets."

A loud, metallic bang makes Tadashi glance under the car in concern, but Hiro doesn't seem to be fazed in the slightest.

"I'm sure she'll meet us at Denveshima," Tadashi continues. "And are you sure you can get that to work—?"

The engine revs and the truck vibrates to life. Hiro dusts his grimy hands against his equally grimy jacket, flashing a smile at Tadashi.

"Sorry, what was that?"

"Yeah, yeah. Calm your ego," Tadashi says fondly.

Hiro only smirks and leaps into the car. Tadashi smiles back, but inside, he can't help but wonder just what Hiro could have done a decade ago, in an ordinary civilization with science at his fingertips.

Maybe he would've just wasted all his time, ignoring school because it was too boring or too stupid. Yeah, that sounds more like Hiro.

"Hurry up, you old geezer. You take forever."

"Slow down, whippersnapper," Tadashi tosses back, slipping into the driver's seat. He slowly edges the hovercar out to the highway.

"Las Vepporo, here we come!" Hiro crows.

But Tadashi hesitates with his hand over the throttle, changing a final glance back to the abandoned warehouse, half-dissolved in the polluted distance.

"Goodbye, Aunt Cass," he mumbles.

He turns to greet the bloody dawn.

(•–•)

**AN OBITUARY**

Aunt Cass was always a fighter.

The average turning time is 15 minutes.

She took two hours.

_tbc._


	2. Denveshima

GOGO TOMAGO KNOWS HOW TO take care of herself. She's been doing it since she was seven, when her parents fled Denveshima and left her as collateral for the walking dead. She learned how to break bones when she was eight, amputate limbs when she was nine, and finally, sever heads when she was ten.

She met no one and spoke to no one. Maybe she would've forgotten English, if she didn't think in it every day.

(•–•)

**GOGO TOMAGO**

Most days, she forgets that she has a different name.

(•–•)

As the sun bleeds its way into the sky, Gogo kicks away the jacket that's currently substituting for her blanket, slings her pack over her shoulders, and starts down the road. The air smells of silt and sulfur, but it doesn't bother her. She doesn't remember what normal air smells like.

She slips into the outskirts of Denveshima, sliding between streets that she knows like the back of her hand. The city's waiting in anticipation for more residents; she'd killed all of them yesterday, but she knows that they'll be replaced before noon. Her only comfort is that, eventually, the walkers will thin out. After all, the one thing they can't do is reproduce.

She slings herself on a window sill and scales to the roof of a three-storey building, checking her surroundings. Sure enough, a sizable horde is ambling from the freeways—slowly, but assuredly.

"Right," she mutters—to herself, since there's no one else to talk to. "Day 4,346."

She leaps from the roof, shouldering her trusty sharp-edged frisbee, and braces herself for slaughter.

(•–•)

**A STUDY**

...once claimed that a prolonged lack of human contact resulted in insanity.

But Gogo has never cared much for studies.

(•–•)

She lands among them with catlike grace, slicing and dicing in a deadly waltz with her frisbee. Mutated flesh splits open beneath her feet, slicking the bottom of her soles with black blood.

Turned. Long gone. Unrecognizable. Maybe one was her mother, or her father.

She dances for hours. Three, to be exact. Then the stage is empty, bathed in crimson light, and the curtain draws. She sighs emptily and stares at the blaring sky.

"Casualties: zero. Survivors: one." She barks a short, wry laugh, and sprints back to her watchtower.

"Rest in peace, Denveshima," she mutters. "Or pieces."

(•–•)

**DENVESHIMA**

It lies en route to Las Vepporo.

Two humans have just passed the city limits.

(•–•)

Tadashi pulls the car into the battered remains of a parking space by the nearest shopping center. Hiro chuckles grimly.

"End of the world, and you still mind the lines," he teases.

"Yeah, yeah," Tadashi says.

He switches their steadfast vehicle to standby, allowing the solar panels to soak up the relentless rays of the sun. Hiro agilely leaps out of the car, twirling his makeshift hand tool between his fingers.

"Whoa, ghost town," he says. "I thought this was supposed to be a big city."

Tadashi readies his pipe, keeping his eyes peeled for the first sign of a humanoid figure. "It is."

"Yeah, I'm really getting that metropolis vibe," Hiro says dryly. "You think we can find Aunt Cass in this mass of people?"

Tadashi digs his fingers into his grimy jacket. "Maybe," he mumbles.

Hiro doesn't know, and Tadashi will never tell him.

They search for a handful of hours. Well, Hiro does; Tadashi knows that there is no use in searching for a person who no longer exists. But he keeps his hopeful smile and obligingly scours each building, all the while holding a sour sludge of guilt in the pit of his stomach.

He's digging through a dilapidated grocery store, searching for any potential source of food, when a clear, cold voice slices through the air behind him.

"One wrong move, and your head comes clean off."

Tadashi whips around, bracing his pipe. A lithe, feminine figure slinks to the ground, masked in the shadows.

A... human?

He stares blankly for a long moment, pipe slipping through his fingers. The stranger seems just as astonished as he.

"What are you?" she blurts warily, raising her arm. If Tadashi squints, he can barely make out a jagged disc strapped to her like a shield.

"I'm, uh, Tadashi," he blurts. "Human. Male human. Man."

She slinks closer, her outline still vague. "Didn't know your type existed anymore."

"Then what are you?" Tadashi challenges.

She pauses. He drops his pipe.

"I don't bite," he says. "Unless you're a zombie."

She slides into the light.

Her hair is dark, short, tossed over her scalp like silken leaves. Her eyes are bold and clear; her pale skin is touched with a hint of tan. She's smudged with dirt and the hem of her shirt is torn and her jeans are stained with blood, but she's the first young woman that Tadashi has seen in five years and he has no doubt that in an ordinary world, she would've been beautiful.

She circles him, lifting her arm. He realizes that the disc she's carrying seems to be some kind of modified frisbee: scrap metal, sharpened to a point, is melded to the edges, creating a perilous handsaw. He tries not to flinch when she suddenly steps forward.

"You're alive," she observes plainly.

"Kind of hard for a dead person to talk," he says.

"Haven't seen a human in years," the woman says. "Not one that hasn't turned."

"Well, I'm here," Tadashi says, "and I have a brother." Perhaps it is a stupid idea to say these things, but he wants to trust her—needs to trust her. She's human and he's human and they share a common enemy.

She straightens, staring at her shoes. "I'm... Gogo. Gogo Tomago."

It's an unusual name, but he doesn't comment on it. "You here alone?" he asks.

She nods, hiding her face behind her weaponized frisbee.

Here. Alone. In this huge city, with no one to talk to. Tadashi feels a stab of sympathy and holds out his hand.

"Wanna come with us?" he asks.

She stares at it.

"You, um, take it," he explains.

She frowns in confusion. "How? Is it detachable?"

"Not that kind of 'take it,'" Tadashi says, hurriedly retracting his hand. "I meant... never mind. Let's go."

He starts off, but Gogo quickly grips the hem of his jacket, staring up at him with pleading eyes.

"Did I do something wrong?" she asks.

_She's afraid._

He realizes it gently, a soft whisper in the back of his mind.

_This is the first human contact she's had in years. She's afraid she'll mess it up._

He smiles encouragingly. "Come on," he says. "You need to meet my brother."

(•–•)

**A NOTE**

The word "friend" has never existed  
in the dictionary of Gogo Tomago.

It has never had any reason to.

_tbc._


	3. Patterns

HIRO DOESN'T REALLY KNOW WHAT to think of Gogo Tomago.

At first, he thinks she is quiet. She doesn't meet his eyes and speaks hesitantly and he wonders how such a timid woman could have survived such a demanding time.

Then, he thinks that she is brilliant. She wordlessly weaves through the alleys of Denveshima, scaling the walls like a spider, knowing the exact movement patterns of any zombies they happen to come across. He wonders if she was a strategic genius before the outbreak.

Now, he thinks that she is terrifying.

She spins and flies with fervor, catching the undead in her dance of death, the frisbee an extension of her arm. Her lips tweak into a small smile—a smile of comfort, of nostalgia, of warm cider after long journeys abroad. She is at peace as bodies snap and spill and lurch: a macabre reenactment of antique ballet.

Tadashi is busy with his own section of clearing the road, so Hiro remains frozen on the sidelines, stomach churning with nausea.

(•–•)

**SMILE**

(n.) a pleased, kind, or amused facial expression,  
typically with the corners of the mouth turned up  
and the front teeth exposed.

(n.) an expression of vengeance.

(•–•)

The deed is done and the freeway is clear of obstacles. Gogo and Tadashi jump into the car and Hiro is in the driver's seat, clenching the wheel to keep his hands from shaking.

"Right," Tadashi says, tossing his pipe blaisely in the trunk. "Off to Las Vepporo. Hiro?"

Hiro swallows and looks at Gogo, who is absently picking at the dried blood on the edges of her frisbee.

He does not ask about Aunt Cass, because he knows about Aunt Cass. So instead, he asks about Gogo Tomago.

"Does... does she have to come with us?" he asks hesitantly.

Gogo stops. Tadashi stares.

"I mean," Hiro says, stumbling over his words as he tries to find a fitting excuse, "You know, she's a girl...?"

Tadashi ruffles his hair. "You saw how she took care of those zombies," he says.

_Yes,_ Hiro thinks. _I did. That's the problem._

"You saying I can't handle myself, kid?" Gogo says, eyeing him darkly.

It's the first time that he's felt the brunt of her wrath, and Hiro immediately backtracks.

"No. Nothing. Never mind." He stares at the wheel, his throat burning.

Tadashi's hand curls around his shoulder. "Look at me, bonehead."

Hiro looks. Hiro sees.

"Someone has to help," Tadashi says.

Hiro starts the car. Tadashi releases his shoulder and Gogo lounges in the backseat, frowning at the exchange.

(•–•)

**SIBLINGS**

...who grow up together are often reported to share a "secret language."

Hiro Hamada and Tadashi Hamada are siblings.

(•–•)

They hover down the road, keeping their eyes fixed ahead. They ignore the smoldering cities in the distance, the derelict, fallen towers, and the wide expanse of barren ground pressed beneath the footprints of the walking dead.

They stop at a town whose sign is demolished. Hiro does not park between the lines.

Like Denveshima, the town is completely vacant. Neither the living nor the dead populate its streets; in fact, it is the best-kept city that Hiro has seen in the entirety of his tragically limited life. Save for the blood slathered on every wall, of course.

Then they step around the corner and Gogo throws out an arm.

"Stop!" she says harshly.

They stop. She turns to Hiro.

"Got a way to scan chemical compounds?"

"Yeah?"

"Do it."

Hiro quickly slaps at his tool and flips a switch. A focused beam of blue light pierces into the ground; a minefield of white dots lights up the street before their feet.

"Whoa," Hiro breathes.

"What is this? " Tadashi says.

Hiro stoops to the ground, rotating his tool until a jagged appendage is digging into the ground. After a few moments, he raises a tiny, unassuming cylinder, wired to a hidden metal panel just one step in front of them.

"This," Hiro says solemnly, "holds fifty milligrams of hexamethlene triperoxide diamine. And each of the white dots you see represents another capsule, wired to that panel, which discharges an electrostatic impulse on impact."

"Which means?" Gogo says.

Hiro looks to Tadashi, but he only shakes his head. "You're the only one who liked that chemistry book, bonehead."

"It's bad," Hiro says. "Very bad. One wrong step, and we could've been blown to bits." He turns to Gogo, aghast. "How did you know?"

Gogo gives a tiny smile. "Pressure plate."

Hiro balks at the camoflauged square of metal. "You saw that?"

"Learned to." She backtracks their steps. "C'mon. We need to find another way."

Tadashi shakes his head in amazement. Hiro only stares blankly at the hazardous minefield beneath their feet, suddenly realizing why the town's walls are painted with blood.

(•–•)

**PATTERNS**

The capsuled explosives are arranged in perfect diagonal symmetry.

Not that anyone notices before they are detonated.

(•–•)

The sun is setting when they find shelter upon the rooftop. Tadashi watches the golden bath of light fade into the distorted mountains, marveling as he recounts the day in his head. Gogo slips beside him, idly kicking her legs over the ten storey drop beneath them.

"He's sleeping," she says.

"Good," Tadashi says.

Silence falls between them.

"A penny for your thoughts," Tadashi says.

Gogo raises an eyebrow. "Pennies don't exist anymore."

"It's... it's a saying," Tadashi mumbles. "You know. 'What's on your mind?'"

Gogo frowns. "I don't have a mental illness."

Tadashi flushes. "Not _that_ kind of thing on your mind, it means—" He sighs, waving a hand in dismissal. "You didn't grow up using idioms, did you?"

Gogo smiles wryly. "I didn't grow up with anything," she says practically. "Been on my own for almost as long as I can remember."

He absorbs this for a moment, imagining a little girl in the war torn streets of Denveshima, brandishing a frisbee and knowing nothing but blood and death and the endless struggle for survival.

"I'm sorry," he says. It sounds empty from him.

Gogo frowns. "Sorry for what?"

He berates himself. Right. Literal. "Never mind," he says.

They're silent again, relishing in the precious peace of the moment. Tadashi closes his eyes to see the sunset in his mind.

Then there's the scream.

It's a gripping, bone-chilling scream that rakes up Tadashi's spine and makes him shudder from the heels of his feet. Gogo leaps up, brandishing her frisbee.

"What's that?" she says harshly.

Tadashi slumps upward. "It's Hiro," he says softly. "Give me a moment."

He reenters the building, where he finds Hiro huddled against the corner, eyes squeezed shut and mouth agape in wordless terror. He quickly drops to his side and cups Hiro's head in his hands, keeping his voice low and soft and he speaks words of nothingness into his ear.

"It's okay. I'm here. We're fine. They're gone."

Gogo silently watches this spectacle. When Tadashi spares her a glance, he sees that her eyes are glassy.

"Night terrors," he explains. "Hiro has them. A lot."

He absently runs his fingers through Hiro's hair. Hiro clutches at the hem of his shirt and quietly fades back into his dreams.

Gogo stoops next to them. "And what about you?" she says quietly.

Tadashi stares. "Me?"

She nods once.

"Don't know," Tadashi says. "I don't remember my dreams."

Gogo considers this for a moment. Then she returns outdoors, staring as the last etches of sunlight fade into pressing blackness.

(•–•)

**TADASHI'S TERRORS**

...include killing Aunt Cass, and Hiro killing their parents.

But Tadashi doesn't know, and Hiro will never tell him.

_tbc._


	4. Knock

**(a/n: due to plot reasons i've had to switch around some of the specialties of the characters. as you can see, wasabi is strong at chemistry instead of applied physics. but i've tried all i can to keep them in character. well... if they were all sociopaths.)**

* * *

HE LIVES IN A HOUSE WHERE THE furniture is set in perfect right angles and the ragged books on the crumbling shelves are arranged by the worn remains of their ISBNs.

He sleeps, eats, and works in the same room: his laboratory, a spacious, clean-cut chamber adjacent to a greenhouse, where he grows his progeny with tender loving care and a dash of classical music. The current flavor of the month is Beethoven, and he is currently synthesizing chemicals to the victorious beat of the final movement of the 9th symphony. The chorale speaks to him on a near-spiritual level, ascending him heavenward as he lifts his latest batch of hexamethlene triperoxide diamine into the air, relishing his repeated success.

Perhaps he should seek a challenge; something that he cannot synthesize with his eyes closed.

He takes a quick whiff of his wasabi plant and settles into his half-broken rolling chair, absorbing the peace and quiet around him.

(•–•)

**A BIOGRAPHY**

He woke one day with nothing but his  
knowledge of English, a chemistry  
textbook, and a horde of zombies.

He was not even granted his name.

(•–•)

He munches at his greenhouse-grown fruit, easily ignoring the bitter tinge of fallout against his tongue. He was once terrified of it, but now, he realizes that it does nothing to him.

He continues in peace, biting bits of apple and orange between chemical study. He is unshakable, grounded, invincible.

The foundations of his house rumble briefly, and he looks outside his window. Sector 4, obliterated, right on schedule. The zombies from Las Vepporo must have just arrived. No surprises; all calculated. He relaxes.

Then, there is a knock at his door.

(•–•)

**KNOCK**

(n.) a polite way to inform  
people of one's presence.

(n.) generally impossible when a) humanity  
is all but extinct, and b) a minefield of  
self-synthesized explosives is set in a  
mile perimeter around one's house.

(•–•)

"Knocking?" Gogo says. "Really?"

"It's locked," Tadashi says lamely. "I thought I might as well..."

"Look, Pipehead, no one's alive to open the door," Gogo says. "Just break it down."

"But the explosives," Tadashi says. "They're arranged in a huge circle, and this house is at the center. Wouldn't that mean something?"

Gogo quiets at this. Hiro only stares at his shoes.

"How many people are still out there?" Hiro says softly.

"Too many," Gogo says with a quirk to her lips.

Tadashi links his fingers together and stares at the blood-stained doorknob before them, willing it to remain still.

It turns.

(•–•)

**SOUND**

There is the whisper of the desert wind  
and the faint strains of Beethoven's 9th.

Silence can be more deafening than sound.

(•–•)

The man before them is large in frame. His dark face is rounded at the corners, and his ebony hair is braided back from his face and thrown down to his shoulders. His shirt bunches around his muscled torso as he leans forward, his giant hands curling against the door frame.

Tadashi gulps. On second thought, maybe he shouldn't have voluntarily approached a known pyromaniac.

"Uh," he says unintelligibly. "Hi."

Suddenly, the man pounds them with a fluid-filled balloon, dousing them in sticky, greenish liquid that smells of pungent ginger and rotten eggs.

"Gyack!" Hiro yelps, shaking his clothes. "Gross!"

Gogo tenses, ready to pounce, but Tadashi hurriedly grips her arm.

"Not yet," he hisses.

She relaxes—slightly.

Tadashi evenly meets the gaze of the man, waiting for his move. The man scratches his chin, a slight smile pulling at his lips.

"Good," he says. "Come in."

He steps inside, but Gogo seizes his collar.

"First," she says coldly, "you tell us what this is."

She flicks the liquid at his face. He doesn't flinch.

"For you? Nothing," he says calmly. "For any active carrier of the LX-635... a caustic corrosive."

She recoils, rubbing the liquid between her fingers. "This... melts walkers?" she says.

He grins cheerily. "Come inside. _And take off your shoes_."

(•–•)

**LX-635**

**General Term:** Walker Virus

**Symptoms:** desensitized nerves, loss of  
rational thought and inhibitions, cancerous  
epidermal growths, enhanced strength

**Cures:** none

(•–•)

The house is one storey and small. It is orderly, with each object in its proper place, and if not for the bloody graffiti of _NO WAY OUT, SAVE US, I AM SORRY_ scratched into the walls, Tadashi would have considered it a perfectly ordinary home.

The man gestures to the sofa, which is tinted red, but otherwise well-kept.

"Excuse my manners," he says. "It's been a while since I've received anyone."

Hiro leans to Tadashi's ear. "I'm pretty sure that tossing corrosive substances at your guests is rude in every culture," he mutters.

Tadashi swats the back of his head.

"So... where are you from?" the man says. He sits straight and his eyes are sharp and Tadashi wants to trust him like he trusted Gogo Tomago.

"I'm Tadashi. This is Hiro. We're from New Yoname." He gestures to Gogo, who is flopped over the armrest of the sofa, chewing something that looks vaguely like bubblegum. "And this is Gogo. From Denveshima."

Gogo sends a casual salute. The man doesn't budge.

"How'd you all survive?" he says easily.

Tadashi shuffles. "It was hard, but... Hiro and I got by because of our aunt. As for Gogo—"

"So, never wanted to eat each other?" the man interrupts.

They stare.

"People get hungry," the man says.

Silence.

"He's crazy," Hiro whispers to Tadashi. (This time, Tadashi doesn't hit him.)

Surprisingly, Gogo is the first one to speak. She leans on one knee, examining the man with a piercing gaze.

"You alone?" she says.

"You are, too," he says.

"How'd you know?"

"The—"

"—eyes?"

"Yes."

Hiro and Tadashi whip back and forth, trying to keep up with the conversation. Gogo smiles tightly.

"Ever cooked?" she asks.

The man shrugs. "When I was desperate enough."

"How done?"

"Medium rare. Wasn't bad."

"Medium's better."

He smiles. She smirks back.

"Score?" he returns.

"1 mill, give or take," she says. "You?"

"Lost count at 4 mill," he crows triumphantly.

Her eyes narrow. "You cheat."

"Well, define cheating."

Hiro stares at Tadashi. Tadashi stares at Hiro.

"You have any idea what they're talking about?" Hiro whispers.

"Not a clue," Tadashi says.

The man suddenly turns to them, as if he's just remembered their presence. Tadashi instinctively straightens beneath his keen perusal.

"Go wash up," the man says. "The bathroom's upstairs. There's running water, sort of."

They recoil at the sudden offer, blinking in surprise. Gogo only smirks.

"Uh, thank you," Tadashi says.

"No problem," the man says. Then his lips flatten and the glint in his eye turns cold. "But fold the towels into thirds when you're done."

(•–•)

**MEDIUM RARE**

It's the least amount that one  
can cook zombie flesh without  
suffering adverse side effects.

_tbc._


	5. Attraction

GOGO TOMAGO EXITS THE BATHROOM completely clean. It's a raw, vulnerable feeling, and she hates it; she feels like a newborn fresh out of the womb, and she craves the perpetual layer of dirt and sweat and grime that protects her skin.

She slides down the banister and lands neatly on her feet. Tadashi Hamada is lounging against the sofa, eyes roving across a widespread book in his calloused hands.

"Done," she calls to him, and jabs her thumb upstairs. "Your turn."

"Thanks," he says absently. He shuts the book and looks up. Then suddenly stops.

Her brows furrow as his gaze drifts over her, his mouth slightly agape. An unfamiliar emotion curdles in her stomach—something she's never felt, something she doesn't know.

"What is it, Pipehead?" she demands harshly.

"You're, uh, clean," Tadashi says.

She wraps her arms around herself. It's vulnerable and it's silly and it's weak, but she can't help it when Tadashi is staring at her so intently. "Yes. That happens when someone washes up," she says drily.

He swallows, his fingers digging into his knees.

"What?" she demands again.

He quickly shifts his stare to the ground and pulls his cap over his eyes. "Nothing," he blurts. "Nothing, I'm gonna go wash up. Uh, thanks. For letting me know. Not for anything else. Or anything. Duh..."

He throws the book to the other side of the room and sprints up the stairs without any explanation. Gogo gapes in wonder.

("Don't throw my books!" yells the man in the other room. "I have a system!")

(•–•)

**ATTRACTION**

**Official signs:** increased heart  
rate, dilated pupils, open  
posture, flushed cheeks

**Unofficial signs: **blabbering like  
an idiot, running like a coward

(•–•)

He tends to his beloved garden as the woman named Gogo Tomago strides about, poking and prodding his plants with all the delicacy of a rhinoceros in a china shop. He holds his breath and counts to ten and hopes she will leave.

She doesn't.

At first, he thought that he would get along with her the most. He understood her. She understood him. They had much in common.

He is beginning to rethink this.

"Don't touch," he says tautly as she jabs her fingers at his wasabi leaves.

"What, will it break?" she says.

He grits his teeth. "It's not yours, so don't touch."

She doesn't touch. He relaxes.

"This is wasabi, isn't it?" Gogo says casually. "Why are you growing wasabi?"

He closes his eyes and recounts Beethoven's 9th in his head. "Because it's useful," he says.

She smirks. "Whatever you say, Wasabi."

Irritation flickers its nasty fingers in his throat, but he keeps it down. These are, after all, the only humans he'd seen since the outbreak.

"Got a name, Wasabi?" Gogo poses, picking an apple from his tree.

"Don't take that!" he flares. "I only pick the apples on Wednesdays!"

She looks from the apple to him and back. "What happens if you don't pick them on Wednesdays?"

The world explodes. His mind explodes. Something explodes. "Just don't!" he snaps. "I have a system."

She shrugs. "Well, already picked it." And bites into it.

He promptly dumps her out of the lab and locks both doors, hyperventilating to keep his temper under control.

(•–•)

**FRESH WASABI**

**Contents: **protein, fiber, vitamins, calcium  
magnesium, potassium, manganese

**Uses: **anti-cancerous, anti-inflammatory,  
anti-microbial, anti-platelet, antioxidants,  
_anti-infected_

(•–•)

Wasabi locks the three of them in a room and they're not allowed to leave and they're most certainly _not_ allowed to visit his lab. Hiro easily solves this problem by picking the lock, but Tadashi doesn't let them budge. Best to stay on the good side of a man with explosives.

Gogo spins her frisbee on one finger as Hiro hums between his teeth, fiddling with his multitool. Tadashi starts to fold the clothes he's washed, since there's nothing else to do.

"That guy's a whackjob," Hiro says presently.

Gogo snorts. "That's being nice."

"Do you know why he suddenly, um, changed?" Tadashi asks diplomatically.

Hiro shrugs. Gogo scowls.

"He was really uptight about the fruit on those trees." She shrugs. "I don't get it. Food's there to be eaten."

Tadashi groans inside. How can he possibly explain something like "ownership" to someone who's never lived in a normal society? "Uh, try thinking of it from his point of view," he supplies. "What if I took your disc from you?"

She stares at the disc on her arm. "This?"

"Yeah. Imagine that I took it. How would you feel?"

Her eyebrow arcs. "Think you could use it better than me?"

"No, but—like, wouldn't you be upset? Because the disc is yours."

"...Mine?"

He needs to prove his point tangibly. He snatches the disc from her arm, praying that she won't kill him.

But she only stares, thoroughly baffled.

"Aren't you mad?" Tadashi says.

"I... guess?"

She says this hesitantly, more in an attempt to please him than actually understanding.

He returns the disc, defeated. She takes it and stares at it with a quizzical tilt to her lips. He keeps his eyes fixed on his hands. The resulting silence is deafening.

...Wait, silence?

He quickly takes stock of the room. No Hiro. One open vent.

Great.

"That bonehead," he mutters, storming out of the room. "I knew it was too quiet..."

(Gogo stays and examines the disc, disconcerted.)

(•–•)

**PRIVACY**

Hiro Hamada never understood the concept.

It was why he, at four years old,  
broke into a room in which his  
parents had locked themselves.

Tadashi rescued him.  
So he rescued Tadashi back.

(•–•)

Wasabi moves on to the elegant, roiling theme of Johann Strauss II's _Wiener Blut_ as he prunes his pear tree—for it is a Saturday, and Saturdays are for pears. He snips the overgrown branches to the beat of the waltz, humming beneath his breath.

"Whoaaaaaaa."

He stiffens at the voice. Another intruder. Hadn't he been disturbed enough already?

"Leave before I blow you up," he says irritably.

"I've only seen trees like this in books."

"I'll give you ten seconds," Wasabi says, closing his eyes. "Ten."

"These are... apples? And pears, right? They're so... bright."

"Nine," Wasabi says.

"Oooh. What's this?"

"Eight."

"Blech! What's _that_?"

"Seven."

"Oh, wait, I know this one. Wasabi! Aunt Cass used to rave about it. Is that why Gogo calls you Wasabi?"

"Six."

"Whoa! This wall _turns_?!"

"Fivefourthreetwoone! Didn't I tell you not to come here?!" Wasabi flares, and whips around, brandishing his pruning scissors with vigor.

He comes face-to-face with a scrawny, small-framed boy with round, rosy cheeks and eyes that are too large for his head. It's the picture of childhood naiveté, and Wasabi realizes that he never gave the young boy a good look.

It is tragic, he thinks. For a young boy to come into the world knowing nothing but this hell.

"Hi," Hiro says.

"Hi," Wasabi says.

He doesn't think that he is very good with kids.

"Where does this lead?" Hiro asks, pointing to the half-open wall at the far corner of the greenhouse.

Well, on the other side lies his lab where he cultivates his tools of mass destruction. Not that he can say that to this child.

"It leads your death," Wasabi says calmly, turning back to his pear tree. Surely that will be incentive enough to leave it alone.

Hiro stares. Then shrugs and ducks under Wasabi's arm.

(Kids tend to be more annoying than innocent.)

Nevertheless, he tromps in after Hiro, watching with apprehension as the bright-eyed devil races from table to table, pointing excitedly at every element that catches his eye.

"Look at all these bottles! Hey, wait, is this hexamine? Ammonia—and whoa, how'd you get that formaldehyde?"

Despite himself, a smile pulls at Wasabi's lips. He'd never met anyone who showed actual interest in chemistry.

(Well, he'd never met anyone, period.)

"Yes, it's hexamine," he says obligingly. He doesn't answer the second question.

Hiro's eyes sparkles. "So, from the looks of this table... you took the hexamine, and—yup, here's the hydrogen peroxide—and this is the mold that makes citric acid—"

He suddenly halts, looking uncertainly at Wasabi.

"Hexamethlene triperoxide diamine," he says softly.

Wasabi's throat tightens.

"So, Tadashi was right," Hiro says. "You are the one who makes the bombs."

Wasabi doesn't know why, but he feels the urge to explain. "Well, there were a lot of walkers. And only one me." He rushes forward when Hiro doesn't budge. "This mold—it's Aspergillus niger, and when I feed it this molasses—there's a solution, like this, and so I take the niger out, and precipitate it with a bit of calcium hydroxide—"

He looks at Hiro and is encouraged to see that the spark of interest has returned. But right as Hiro steps forward to steal a glance, Tadashi Hamada blazes in, bursting the calm of the moment.

"Hiro!" he cries. "Hiro, what are you _doing_?!"

"Just—just looking!" Hiro says, instinctively crouching behind Wasabi.

Tadashi looks straight at Wasabi.

Wasabi is surrounded with weapons and explosives and a thousand hidden knives and syringes that he can use to kill Tadashi, but he sees the fire in Tadashi's eyes, a fire not unlike a mother protecting her child, and he quickly steps away.

Tadashi grants him a brief nod of acknowledgment before he snatches Hiro by the collar, dragging him forcibly out of the lab.

"We're gonna have a talk, young man!" he says sternly.

"Wasabi, how could you?!" Hiro pleads.

The rotating wall clicks shut. Wasabi works alone in the darkness, treating his new calcium citrate salt with sulfuric acid.

He pretends to relish the silence.

(•–•)

**A JAPANESE PROVERB**

能ある鷹は爪を隠す。  
_Nou aru taka wa tsume o kakusu._

Still waters run deep.

_tbc._


	6. Head Count

_**(a/n: just when you were beginning to wonder if this story actually had a plot.**__**)**_

* * *

LAS VEPPORO SPARKS TO RUIN beneath the agile leaps and tumbles of two lithe figures upon the rooftop. It was once a lovely city, a lively city—but now it is spurned with crooked signs and torn banners and a layer of debris filling every corner; now, it is at the mercy of the two rogues at its pinnacle.

"Shame," one of them, feminine and waifish in figure, chirps. "I heard this city was the happening place. Parties, gambling, drugs—you name it, it was here."

"The great Fredzilla has no need for such trivial activities," scoffs the other, also waifish, but significantly less feminine, in figure.

"Why, Freddie, we'd hardly go for the food or the friends," the woman returns, her eyes sparkling in the musky moonlight.

The man named Fred grins back. "For the funds, then, dear Honey?"

"Read my mind."

"Always do."

They leap from the roof, harnessing their newly acquired jet packs over their shoulders. Fred flips for extra style points.

(•–•)

**FRED AND HONEY LEMON**

When tragedy strikes, there are  
those who mourn, those who help,  
and those who laugh in amusement.

Fred and Honey Lemon are the third.

(•–•)

The two rocket to the adjacent rooftop, touching down lightly on the tiled surface. Fred strikes an overly dramatic pose, utilizing the moon as a cinematic backlight. Honey only chuckles at his antics.

"9.0?" Fred says expectantly.

Honey taps a slender finger against her chin. "7.5. I've seen better."

"A discerning eye cuts through bone and marrow," Fred mourns dramatically, "but yours cuts through the male ego."

She bumps his shoulder with a coquettish grin. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," she chirps brightly. "Now... the signal?"

Fred resignedly tosses a crumpled piece of paper at her face. She deftly catches it.

"Marked it," Fred says sullenly. "North side. Forty minutes ago, tops."

"Perfect," Honey breathes. "Got an ID?"

"Ink insignia." Fred shrugs. "Easties."

Honey flips her newly acquired visor over her face. "Well, what are we waiting for?" she says cheerily, her voice muffled against the carbon fiber. "We got a housewarming party to throw."

(•–•)

**A DISCLAIMER**

Do not attempt stealing, hacking,  
or cheating in real life. It may result  
in eternal vengeance, blacklisting, and  
appearances on Interpol's Most Wanted.

Unless everyone else is dead.

Almost everyone else, that is.

(•–•)

Around the north side of Las Veppero, huddled around the smoldering embers of a humble campfire, three figures are bundled in large, bloodied blankets, clearly unfamiliar with the current climate.

"We should've just stayed in San Fransokyo," one of them groans—a tall, lithe young man with gleaming eyes. "Who needs samples from out in these boonylands?"

"Orders are orders, Aladdin," says another patiently—a sturdily built man with a jaw as square as his sense of morals.

"But Shang—"

"Las Vepporo. 500 samples," Shang Li snaps. "We're not leaving with one sample fewer."

Aladdin snorts and turns back to the embers. The willowy woman beside Shang breathes in the silence.

"We've only gotten 75 samples and it's almost been a week," she muses. "It feels like..."

She trails off. Shang raises an eyebrow.

"Feels like?"

The woman studies her fingers, shifting awkwardly. "Umm..."

"Just say it, Mulan," Shang says tiredly.

But Mulan doesn't speak; someone else speaks for her.

"Captain."

Bounding towards the group, as if melting from the shadows, comes a woman who leaps through the debris like a gazelle on a mountain. She elegantly slides to her knees, hair rippling to her bloodstained ankles.

"Pocahontas," Shang says, relieved. "Any news—"

"Where's Jasmine?" Aladdin breaks in.

Pocahontas raises a slender hand and closes her eyes, drawing circles in the decaying asphalt with her finger.

"Listen," she whispers.

They listen. There is silence and wind and nothing else.

"I don't hear anything," Aladdin says with a frown.

Mulan smiles ruefully. "Isn't that the problem?"

Pocahontas nods. The circles from her finger turn into defined shapes—broken buildings, bulbous growths, latticed webs of powdered blood. She fixes her gaze on Shang's.

"A mutation is taking place," she says. "The deadliest we may have seen in years."

"A... mutation?" Shang says uneasily.

Pocahontas bows her head. "The walkers are not only growing in size and strength... but they have learned how to reproduce."

Silence descends on the group.

"They... what?" Aladdin says, disbelieving.

Shang clenches the metal case by the center of the group. "How?" he demands.

"I know not myself, precisely," Pocahontas says. "Jasmine has gone to investigate."

Aladdin threads his fingers in his hair but remains silent. Shang leaps to his feet, pacing restlessly about the embers; Mulan stares at her dirtied hands, her lips pressed into a thin line. The stillness in the air presses at their throats.

"Odds of her coming back?" Aladdin asks.

Pocahontas closes her eyes. "Slim."

"More than usual?"

"She would not have it any other way."

Aladdin swears beneath his breath, staring into the sky. Once again, silence abounds over the motley crew.

Then a terrified cry tends through the quiet, and everything comes to life.

(•–•)

**HEAD COUNT**

Six (6) adults. Three (3) males  
and three (3) females.

One of the males will distract the  
others, while one of the females will  
quietly ransack the provisions.

(•–•)

Fred finishes his world-destroying, paradox-unraveling, time-exploding scream with a guttural wail, keeling against the wall despite the fact that Honey Lemon is his only audience. She giggles at his antics, the dark magenta of her jacket gleaming in the moonlight.

"That was a pretty convincing death," she says.

"10.0?" Fred says eagerly.

"8.8," Honey says. "Now c'mon, get rid of that visor. You're supposed to be a fleeing victim, remember?"

Fred sighs and plops his visor into Honey's hands. "You like to take all my fun."

"On the contrary, I know how you love a challenge," Honey chirrups, and whisks into the night.

Fred snorts—but the moment he hears approaching footsteps, he drops his shoulders and hunches forward, heaving his lungs for breath. Two shadowed figures slip from around the corner of the building, blocking him in. He quickly throws his arms in the air.

"N-not infected," he gasps out. "P-please, help me!"

He points in some vague direction with urgency. One of the figures bolts to investigate; the other studies him keenly.

"You're a survivor?" the figure—a woman—says.

"Yes—yes, I am, and my friend—my friend, you've got to help him, you've—"

He expects some semblance of comfort, but the woman doesn't budge. "He's probably dead. I'm sorry."

Fred looses a loud, kerning wail for five seconds. He is pretty sure that even Honey would grant it a 9.2.

The woman is not impressed. She doesn't break, she doesn't bend, she doesn't even pity him; she only evaluates him, her face masked by the enigmatic shadows. "Stand up," she says. "I know that you're faking. Survivors aren't weak."

A slight smile pulls at Fred's lips. Finally, a challenge.

He immediately stops his crying and stands, pulling himself to his full height. He sees with satisfaction that he towers over the woman.

"You are gifted in perception," he says epically. "But I assure you, woman, I hold no quarrel against you."

"What do you want?" the woman says flatly.

He raises his arms; a gesture of helplessness. His first priority is to keep these people away from their provisions—provisions that Honey Lemon is currently helping herself to. "My deepest desire, woman," he says, "is to fill my stomach."

The woman tenses. "No rations can be spared. Leave."

He promptly drops his act. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't get excited. I would never think about stealing your precious food." Irony of ironies. "I've learned to cook a mean zombie pot pie. If you help me take down one of the nasty buggers over East, I'll happily share."

The woman doesn't budge, but Fred knows that he's made an appetizing offer. Presently, she raises her wrist, speaking into some shiny apparatus strapped around her forearm.

"Riverwind. My location, stat. Black Genie, you're on OP."

Fred licks his chapped lips as she slides the device backwards. He'd give his right arm for something that nifty. Hopefully, Honey would be able to pinch a spare.

"For the record," the woman says coolly, "I still don't trust you."

"Duly noted, woman," Fred says. "Shall we get ourselves some ZRE? You know, zombies ready to—"

She steps into the moonlight, and her skin seems to shimmer in its cold rays. He sees her face—angular, jutted, with dark, magnetic eyes that seems to squeeze the air around him. A gash runs from her forehead to her cheek, and bruises dot her jaw.

This is not the type of woman to play around.

"We need a large pack. Class One," she says crisply. "Get us to them."

Another shadow merges from the wall: slender, catlike, with flowing hair whisked to her waist. She's Riverwind, Fred assumes; and her name is fitting. Every step seems to hold the power of water and grace of the wind.

"Khan," she says to the woman.

The woman, Khan, nods her head at Fred. "Boy says he's got a pit for us. Ripe."

Riverwind obligingly tosses some sort of metal case at Khan. It's not light by any means, but Khan catches it with ease.

"Let's go," Khan says, lifting an eyebrow.

Fred swallows. This doesn't seem like the average prey.

But, then again... he and Honey are hardly the average predators.

(•–•)

**CAMP STORAGE**

**Contents:** Foreign produce, dried meat,  
advanced medicine, unclassified weaponry,  
425 empty vials and 75 full vials

**Market Value:** Undefined (market not available)

(•–•)

Honey Lemon drops silently from the overhanging shelter, circling slowly around the guard by the wire link fence. He's tan, clean shaven; lithe, but skin tight with muscle. She'd rather not cross him if she can help it... but at least he doesn't seem to be the intelligent type.

Quietly, Honey palms a sizable rock in her hand, then tosses it as far as possible. It emits a lovely crash through the nearby storefront window. The guard promptly races toward the sound.

Honey yawns. "Too easy," she murmurs.

She slides into a dark tent, pitched at the center of the campsite. It's filled with sacks of dried food, medicine, and... strangely colored vials.

No, not strangely colored. Filled with... walker fluid?

She tried a quick scan with her pilfered glasses. Lots of chemicals; most of them, she doesn't know. But she does find the label LX-635. Brain fluid, blood fluid, unusual pus... She's never seen such a sight before.

"What can you be hiding?" she muses to herself, pilfering the nearest vial. She spins it between her fingers, seemingly unconcerned with the fact that one wrong move will result in a lethal infection.

Then a heavy weight crashes down on her; two tanned hands smash her wrists to the ground.

"Trying to steal from me, huh?" says a hard voice.

Honey squirms through the pain, trying to catch a glimpse of her attacker. It's the guard—the one she distracted just moments ago.

She stammers, aghast. "How did you...?"

He flicks his wrist; a shining edge molds to life on the metal band around his knuckles, toying dangerously close to her throat. She can feel the heat teasing her jawline.

"Rule #1 of the streets," says the guard. "Never try to steal from a thief."

He shifts slightly; light spills into the tent. His face is covered in shadow, but Honey catches a glimpse of a black, curling shape on the edge of his arm. It's a tattoo of some sort—a dark dragon, wings thrown to the sky, flame spewing from its maw.

"So... how is it being an Eastie?" she poses, while secretly examining the light-blade at her throat. (Solar-charged. Precise plasma. Powered by storage cells in the handle.)

He snorts. "What, trying to buy yourself time?"

"No, trying to humanize myself so it's harder to kill me," she says.

"Hate to tell you this, but that doesn't work against people like—"

Suddenly, his blade switches off. Bewildered, he lifts it for examination; Honey seizes the opportunity to elbow him in the jaw and knee him in the stomach. He staggers backward, choking. She casually brushes herself off, slinging her bag over her shoulder.

"Rule #2 of the streets," she chirrups. "Never pull a gadget against an engineer."

She kicks him straight in the temple. He crumples to the ground.

"Sorry, nothing personal," she says, "but you know how it goes. Gotta eat to live, gotta steal to eat."

She flies into the night, unaware of the tracking chip that's hooked on her shoe.

(•–•)

**HONOR AMONG THIEVES**

...is only applicable when authorities exist.

_tbc._


	7. Crap

_**(A/N: TA-DAH. a little tomadashi moment before the plot kicks into high gear.**_

_**minor announcement: tomadashi week on tumblr is from march 29 - april 4. i'm gonna be trying a mixed media kind of thing with image sets + short stories, so i can't post the writing here. it'll be on my tumblr. i mean... i guess it doesn't matter until it's march 29... but meh.)**_

* * *

GOGO TOMAGO IS WOKEN FROM restless sleep by a single, piercing cry that reverberates down the hall, shaking the blood in her veins with its primal, unmitigated assault of terror.

She knows immediately that it is Hiro.

At first, she searches for Tadashi. She sprints to his room, bursting in without any sense of privacy (as she has none), but there is no Tadashi. She races to the shelf of books in the living room, but there is no Tadashi. She even sneaks into the lab, but there is no Tadashi.

And Hiro continues to scream.

There is nothing to it; Tadashi is not here, and Hiro must quiet down. So Gogo enters Hiro's room and settles beside his bed, frantically working through her options as Hiro's bleeding fingers dig into the wall and his back arches over his mattress and his mouth opens in a wordless scream.

Finally, she reaches out her hand, awkwardly patting him on the head.

"Everything's fine," she says uncertainly. "You're not dead. You're sleeping. Stop complaining."

Hiro suddenly stills at her voice. Relieved, Gogo stands and turns to the door—but he suddenly lurches forward, seizing her hand, his eyes still squeezed shut.

"Mom," he whispers brokenly. "I'm sorry, Mom, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

Gogo attempts to extract her hand, but Hiro's grip is deathly tight; his nails dig painfully into her palm. He's clinging onto her... as if it's life or death.

"Don't go, Aunt Cass!" he sobs. "Don't—don't go, don't go—Aunt Cass—please—"

Slowly, Gogo sits on the edge of his bed. He seems to sense her proximity and eases his grip; his head collapses on her shoulder. She stiffens at the contact, but remains still.

"Why did you have to leave, Aunt Cass?" Hiro mumbles, words barely intelligible in the haze of sleep. "Why... why...? If you didn't... 'Dashi wouldn't have had to... Aunt Cass... why..."

He slumps against her, drifting off to sleep. She feels a stirring warmth inside her, a warmth she's never felt: protectiveness, anger, affection, like a guardian supplied with a helpless charge.

This must be what Tadashi feels, she muses.

She gingerly lowers Hiro back onto the mattress and tucks the blankets against his chin. He stirs, his fingers still wrapping around her pinky. Like a lost child.

"Mom," he says—clearly. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry to you and Dad. I'm... I'm really sorry."

Gogo instinctively smooths back his hair. "It's fine," she says bluntly. "Don't worry about it."

"I... I can't believe... I... Mom..."

"Go to sleep," she says, as comfortingly as she can possibly sound. "This'll all be gone by tomorrow."

A very, very slight smile pulls at Hiro's lips. He finally sinks into his mattress, breathing evenly. Gogo slips out of the room.

(•–•)

**A KOREAN PROVERB**

개구리 올챙이 적 생각도 못 한다.  
_Kaeguri olchaeng-i cheok  
__saenggak-do mot handa._

The wise cannot disdain the foolish,  
for they remember their own faults.

(•–•)

Tadashi returns when the sun is just beginning to peak over the horizon. He is silent when he opens the door, but Gogo hears it regardless; she has learned to hear everything, just as she has learned to see everything.

She perches before him, cataloging the shadows beneath his eyes and the wry smile playing around his mouth and feels an inexplicable spark of irritation.

"Where were you?" she demands.

Tadashi jumps, but his shoulders relax when she steps into the light. "Gogo. You scared me," he says, laughing nervously. He quickly raises a sack in his hands. "I was looking for food. We were running low, and, well, I'd rather not ask Wasabi."

Gogo folds her arms, unimpressed. "Hiro had a night terror," she says flatly.

Tadashi pales. "What?"

He makes to sprint up the stairs, but Gogo grips his shoulder and stares him straight in the eye.

"Who," she says, "is Aunt Cass?"

He frowns, brow furrowing in consternation. "How do you know who..." Then his eyes widen and the sack drops from his hands. "Crap."

"What's crap?" Gogo demands.

But Tadashi bounds up the stairs three at a time without a backward glance. Gogo is too bewildered to follow.

(•–•)

**CRAP**

**English:** an act of defecation.

**Tadashian:** an expression  
of unmitigated panic.

**Gogoese:** ?

(•–•)

Tadashi's mind loops in terror as he bursts into Hiro's room.

Hiro knew. How did Hiro know? That must've been why he'd never asked. That must've been why he hadn't mentioned anything when they'd left Denveshima without Aunt Cass.

And here Tadashi was, owing it all to distraction from Gogo's sudden appearance.

He should have known better.

Hiro stirs at the sound, eyes squinting blearily in Tadashi's direction. "...'Dashi?" he mumbles quietly.

"I'm here," Tadashi says, throat thick.

Hiro reaches out, twisting the hem of Tadashi's shirt in his fingers. "I'm sorry," he says, his voice thick from sleep.

Tadashi kneels down, brushing his hand over Hiro's bangs. "No. No, bonehead, _I'm_ sorry."

"How did you do it, 'Dashi?" Hiro chokes, unhearing. "How did you keep those secrets for so long?"

"...What?" Tadashi says.

"Secrets... secrets are ugly... feel gross... feel bad..." Hiro shudders. "Aunt Cass..."

"Shhh. It's okay. Go to sleep." Tadashi pulls the blankets over Hiro's shoulders and hums a wordless lullaby until Hiro sinks away.

He almost doesn't hear Gogo enter the room; she drifts silently to her knees, examining Hiro with a monotone expression. He works through his head, trying to figure out what to say to her.

"So," he says.

She places a hand on his shoulder. "Don't," she says.

He stares, confused. Confused, because he doesn't understand her. Confused, because the hand on his shoulder is unusually comforting, and the thumb on his shoulder blade is making gentle rotations against his skin—the _exact_ same way that he's done to Hiro. Confused, because she's Gogo. "Don't what?" he says.

"Apologize." She smiles wryly. "You do that, even when you don't need to."

"I should've been here," he says.

"Yeah." The word slams into his gut, but she continues. "You should've, but I'm glad you weren't."

He blinks at her. "Glad?"

She nods once, and slowly, gingerly, brushes her fingers against Hiro's temple. Tadashi's heart aches heavily in his chest. "I get it now," Gogo says, her voice uncharacteristically soft. "I get you now."

Her words are unusually cryptic, but he feels hope spreading hot in him. Maybe she was starting to care for Hiro? Maybe she was opening up?

He stares at his hands, his throat suddenly dry. He wants to trust her. He wants to tell her everything. The secrets in his chest are fluttering, begging to escape, crashing against his throat in frantic desperation. But... how can he have a heart-to-heart with someone who'd never had one in her life?

Well, he supposes, circumstances or not, Gogo is still human. So he breathes deeply and speaks.

"Our parents died when I was nine. Hiro was only four. I couldn't take care of him alone," he says quietly, staring at the floor. "So Aunt Cass took care of us."

"She died," Gogo observes.

_I killed her,_ Tadashi thinks, but remains silent.

"When did she die?" Gogo asks. Her fingers tighten over his shoulder—just marginally.

Tadashi breathes. "A few weeks ago."

Gogo nods. They sit there in empty silence, Gogo's thumb still gliding across his shoulder, Hiro's unintelligible murmurs crowding the room. Finally, Gogo speaks.

"You made it painless," she states.

Tadashi blinks. "What?"

"Her death. You made it painless."

He stares, flabbergasted. How could she know?

At his silence, Gogo's brow furrows. "Did I say something wrong?" she asks mildly.

He swallows his shock and quickly shakes his head. "No," he mumbles. "No, you didn't." Gradually, his surprise fades into guilt; it smothers his breath like a heavy blanket. "I didn't make it painless. She... suffered."

Gogo crouches before him, looking into his eyes. Her hands ghost down his arms, holding the tips of his fingers. The motion is unexpectedly tender; he finds himself wondering where she learned to be... comforting.

"She was bitten," he blurted, "because I overslept. We were supposed to get up quickly, be out the door, all by dawn... but I overslept. She hid it. She hid it until we set up camp, and then she pulled me aside, took me to a warehouse... and she told me to kill her. Kill her before she lost her mind. She was turning, she was changing before my eyes... but I couldn't do it."

His throat wells painfully, but he works to shove it away.

"Turning... is excruciating. It only takes fifteen minutes before someone transforms. But Aunt Cass... she fought it. For two hours. She begged me, every second, to kill her. She gave me a pipe. She told me it would be quick, she told me it would be merciful."

"But you didn't," Gogo says.

"I tried," Tadashi whispers. "I tried, I raised the pipe, but I couldn't do it. Those were _her_ eyes looking at me. _Her_ voice speaking to me. I... I couldn't do it."

His voice is shaking with such force that he can barely enunciate. He sees the images before his eyes—the mutilated skin, the bulbous flesh, the veins jutting out from Aunt Cass's skin—and her gaze, pleading, clouding, blackening. The vision that he has worked so hard to push out, push for Hiro's sake, for Gogo's sake, for _his _sake—they flood his mind, sliming his insides with nausea. He reaches out for a person, a hold, _anything_. Something warm clasps his arms; a voice brushes against his ear.

"It's not your fault. None of this is your fault."

"I should've killed her," he groans. "I shouldn't have overslept."

The grip on his arms tightens. A sudden finger jabs at his chin, forcing him to raise his head. For a moment, his delusions clear, and he sees Gogo's dark, burning eyes.

"Don't be an idiot. It's not your fault. It's not Hiro's fault. The only person at any fault is the one who started the outbreak. Understand?"

Her harsh words are a better comfort than any balm Tadashi could imagine. He smiles instinctively, a soft laugh escaping his lips.

"Aye aye, Captain," he says.

Gogo suddenly releases him, her eyes narrowing. He is keenly aware of the lack of warmth against his body.

"What?" he asks.

She tilts her head, confusion flickering across her brow, but shakes it off. "Go sleep," she says brusquely. "I'll watch Hiro."

He shakes his head. "I'm already up."

"You need rest."

He lies beside Hiro's pallet, bunching his jacket beneath his head. "I'll rest here."

She sighs, but her mouth twitches in amusement. "You're stubborn."

"Pot calling the kettle black," he teases.

She tilts her head again. _Cute,_ he thinks, before he shoves the rebellious remark out of his mind. "What does that mean?" she asks.

He only smirks. "Sleep," he says. "We'll leave later today."

She glares skeptically at him, but finally curls up by his side, closing her eyes. She's close enough to touch; Tadashi forces himself to turn over, scolding the racing beat of his heart.

(•–•)

**HOW TO FAKE SLEEP**

1) Keep muscles relaxed.

2) Say nothing.

3) Be Hiro Hamada.

_tbc._


	8. Passersby

_**(a/n: brief psa. the visual novel project that i've been working on, lucid9, has released its second demo. playtime is around 2 hours. please support us by checking it out :D i'm lead writer and do graphics.**_

_**oh and. after some deliberation i've decided to remove the tomadashi tag, primarily because this story does not focus on romance. so, yeah, because of my shipping nature, there will be a little shipping. but in the end, this is a team fic. a screwed-up team fic.**_

_**ok, now onward to the chapter. a couple comments i've gotten is that the structure of the notes feels similar to the book thief. yeah, i was inspired by it. which is funny, cuz i only actually read like... 2 pages of the book? but hey, i guess my adhd nature really likes random notes everywhere**__**.)**_

* * *

WASABI PICKS THE ORANGES, for it is a Sunday. He spends an hour picking off every trace of seed and skin before he relishes in the deep, tingling sensation of citrus washing over his tongue. Peace and quiet, he thinks; peace and quiet is lovely, is wonderful, is... lonely.

No. Not lonely. _Quiet. Tranquil. _How could he even think of loneliness?

He shreds his peels and sprinkles them over the soil of his trees, looking into the smoky sky. It is quiet. Far too quiet. It is well past morning; where is the child? The mother hen? Even the nosy little rat would be welcome at this hour.

He is disconcerted when he analyzes this sudden change of mentality. What could possibly be causing him to think such... odd thoughts?

"Morning, Wasabi!"

He nearly jumps in surprise as the Child, Hiro Hamada, leaps in front of him, grinning with uncharacteristic cheeriness. Wasabi instinctively lashes out in bewilderment, but he feels a smile spreading across his own face.

"Don't _do_ that," he says.

Hiro bounces energetically on his heels. "Do what?" he says innocently.

"Pop out of nowhere," Wasabi says petulantly. "I could be holding something explosive."

"Uh, you're in the greenhouse, not the lab," Hiro points out.

"I could still be holding something explosive," Wasabi protests.

Hiro rolls his eyes. "Like what?" he says. "The wasabi?"

Wasabi doesn't have much to say to that. He silently returns to his oranges, more bewildered than genuinely upset, and Hiro peers over his shoulder with a repentant expression.

"Aww, Wasabi, I was just joking," he says. "I was just thinking, you know, we're leaving later today, and maybe you'd like to come along?"

Wasabi drops his oranges.

"Me?" he says, flabbergasted. "Come along?"

Hiro nods enthusiastically. "Well, you know, Tadashi offered the same thing to Gogo, and I figured it'd get pretty lonely hanging around here by yourself."

Wasabi is stricken speechless—and immediately after the fact, wonders why he is stricken speechless. He has no memory, no humanity, nothing at all... and yet, the intrinsic voice in the back of his head is whispering, _they want you because you can be useful, they want you for their own purposes, they want you as a _subject_, you freak, you loathsome_—

"No!" he blurts.

Hurt flickers in Hiro's eyes. "No?" he says pitifully.

Wasabi's mouth runs dry. "Where... where are you going?" he says hesitantly, hoping to cover his outburst.

"Um, Las Vepporo," Hiro says.

_Las Vepporo._

Wasabi's lungs constrict in his chest, forcing the breath out of his lungs. His vision begins to swim as his head pounds with memories begging to be released—something medicinal, something bright, something jabbing into his arms—

He shakes himself, but something has been unlocked. Warnings flare in his brain, left and right and center, and something in him begins to shut down, smell of sulfur and grit on his tongue—

"_GET OUT!_"

The voice that roars is not his own, he is sure; but he sees Hiro's wide eyes, Hiro's pale face, and his vocal chords are still reverberating, so he must have spoken. Hiro promptly scrambles from the room, slamming the door behind him.

Wasabi sinks into the dilapidated rocking chair by his orange tree. He says nothing, even as Tadashi Hamada ushers Gogo and Hiro out of the house, even as the car is started, even as they disappear into the distance.

(•–•)

**SOUDAI JUNCTION**

A city between Denveshima and Las Vepporo.

Four humans once resided here.

Now, there is only one.

(•–•)

Honey Lemon is lounging casually beneath the shade of a crumbling tree, solar-charged music player belting out tunes of Broadway shows long past, heavy textbook titled _Understanding Mechanics, Ed. 6 by Inha and Woohyun Kim_ propped on her knees. Just twelve years prior, she might have been an ordinary college student on the ordinary quad of an ordinary university, reading an ordinary book while listening to ordinary music—but the time is not twelve years prior, the time is the present, and so sitting beneath a tree while reading a book and listening to music is a very unusual anomaly.

Why, it is almost the sort of anomaly associated with that of a psychopath.

When Fred arrives, she raises an eyebrow at him, gesturing easily to the large sack of provisions stacked beneath her arm. "Well, someone's late to the party," she says with a grin.

He dumps himself next to her and stares at the sky. "Hardest job ever," he croaks. "Barely lost them at the site. Insane."

"What happened?" Honey asks.

Fred straightens, a glimmer in his eye, as he recounts the tale with the touch of a raconteur. "Why, dearest Honey, they were more than just the average Joe," he says dramatically. "They were all but walking slaughterhouses. Normal ranks didn't faze them. They even handled Class Ones pretty well." His mouth spreads in a wicked grin. "I had to lead them to a few Twos to shake them off."

"Tough ones, then," Honey says, surprised.

"Very," Fred sighs. "Just three of them. Two women, Khan and Riverwind. And we were joined by a man just minutes afterward. He called himself the Red Dragon."

Honey nods. "They're different than the regular Easties," she says, extracting a handful of clear vials from the sack. "Look what I found."

She lobs the vials at him. He catches them deftly in between his fingers. "Walker samples?" he says, surprised.

"Looks like the Easties changed their goal," Honey agrees.

"To what?"

She shrugs. "Goodness knows. They've always been out of their minds."

Fred sits back on his heels. "So, my good woman, what do you propose we do?"

Honey spins a pin-sized metal chip on her thumb. "First," she says brightly, "we should get rid of this tracking chip." Her eyes drift to the road. "And I know just where to put it."

Fred's eyes widen. "You mean..."

Honey grins. "Passersby. Time to make life a little more... interesting."

(•–•)

**PASSERSBY**

(n.) A group of people who happen

to be going past something.

(n.) Three people in a solar-powered

car headed to Las Vepporo.

(•–•)

It does not take long for Hiro Hamada to notice that something is _different_.

Certainly, he has witnessed a multitude of unusual events that morning: Gogo and his brother were sleeping in _his _room, Wasabi lost his cool for no apparent reason, and nobody said a single word from the moment they'd boarded the car.

Also, Gogo has taken the front seat. _His_ seat.

Hiro's eyes slide from Tadashi to Gogo and back. On all outer appearances, they _seem_ to be normal. Tadashi is idly tapping his fingers against the wheel, humming a soft melody in the back of his throat. Gogo is lounging against the window, fingers extended to feel the slight breeze washing into the car. There is silence; calm, unfragmented, still in every way. Just like every car ride previous.

Hiro narrows his gaze. If he's observant, he can notice the slight tension on the outer ridge of Tadashi shoulders; the subtle jiggle of Gogo's knee; the barely noticeable slide of their lips, as if they are thinking deeply about something they wish to talk about, but can't.

Hiro considers this with an ironic smile. He knows what's on their minds. He knows the guilt Tadashi has to bear—a guilt too heavy to hold alone. How long had the death of Aunt Cass haunted him? And it was entirely possible that there was an even worse secret lying behind the death—no, Hiro's _murder_—of their two parents.

And yet, the worst thing is that Hiro can do nothing. Tadashi has closed him off; Tadashi has considered him a child; Tadashi has become the guardian, therefore believing he must be strong all the time.

Hiro hates it. It is destroying his brother from the inside out, and he can do nothing about it.

But maybe... just maybe, Gogo can. Hiro doesn't know why, but since this morning, he's felt inexplicably comfortable around her. He supposed that part of the reason is that she is able to comfort Tadashi; but there seems to be something else, something deeper that he can't quite tell.

Odd. He doesn't recall anything happening. But, then again, he only woke up once Tadashi started... well, crying.

"Why Las Vepporo?"

Gogo's question is sudden and breaks him out of his thoughts. He notices how Tadashi hesitates and quickly leaps to answer.

"Great vacationing spot," Hiro says drily. "It's all the rage nowadays."

Tadashi snorts. Gogo blinks.

"Vacationing?" she repeats.

"He's joking," Tadashi explains.

Gogo glances from Hiro to Tadashi and back. "What's vacationing?" she asks hesitantly.

Silence. Hiro's jaw drops.

"You don't know what a vacation is?" he says.

Gogo frowns. "Is it important?"

Hiro wrings his hands. "Is it _important_? Good grief, Gogo, _I _know what a vacation is. And I wasn't even around when we were able to have them."

"You were," Tadashi says. "For two years."

"Oh, pardon me," Hiro says. "Because I'll totally remember if we went to Disneyland twelve years ago."

"We did, and you were very taken with the princesses," Tadashi smirks.

"You're joking," Hiro balked.

Tadashi grins. "Snow White in particular."

Hiro visibly shudders. "Snow White?!"

"Well, you _were _two years old," Tadashi points out. "I can hardly judge your taste."

"Snow White," Hiro echoes disbelievingly. "I thought you were supposed to take care of me."

"A wise man never stands in the way of love," Tadashi says with a sage nod.

"I hate you."

"I know."

Gogo stares in obvious bewilderment. Hiro doesn't blame her; topics that were tearing Tadashi from the inside out just yesterday are being thrown around in trivial jokes. Well, she'll have to get used to it. It's just how the Hamada brothers work.

"Oh, and to answer your question," Hiro says, taking pity on her, "we're going zombie hunting in Las Vepporo."

Gogo relaxes slightly. There; a topic she's familiar with. "You can do that anywhere," she points out.

"Well, supposedly, there's something in Las Vepporo that'll let us wipe out the entire zombie population. Boom. Snap. Just like that." Hiro kicks his feet up on Tadashi's headrest. "Which is, you know, much faster than killing one at a time."

Gogo raises an eyebrow. "Something like that exists?"

"Yup," Hiro says. "And better yet, apparently it won't do a thing to us normal humans."

"How do you know this?" Gogo demands.

An eerie silence falls over the car. Hiro feels a catch in his throat. Tadashi grips the wheel a little tighter.

"Aunt Cass," Tadashi says shortly.

"Oh," Gogo says.

More silence.

"Beautiful weather today, isn't it?" Hiro says humorously, pointing a foot at the clouded sky above.

"Hiro," Tadashi groans.

And yet more silence.

"Soooooooo," Hiro says, long and drawn out with an eyebrow raised, "'Dashi, you got the hots for Gogo?"

Tadashi flushes intensely. "What?! You're ridiculous, knucklehead!"

"What's 'the hots?'" asks Gogo.

"I'm just saying, something's suspicious," Hiro says with a smug smile.

Tadashi reaches over and tries to bat him on the head. "Shut up."

"What does 'shut up' mean?" asks Gogo.

"You guys would look good together."

"I hate—"

But before Tadashi can complete the sentence, his eyes widen and he wrenches the wheel to the side, sending the car reeling with a protesting squeal. Hiro is thrown against the window; a blare of pain spreads across the side of his head.

"Ow! Tadashi—!"

_Bwoom._

The car rattles. Hiro instinctively ducks.

A blinding sphere of light rockets over his head, mercilessly tearing the roof of their car into the air. The smell of metallic fire fills Hiro's nostrils.

"Hiro!" Tadashi says.

"Plasma," Hiro identifies. "Artillery of some kind? No, a mobile firearm."

"Gogo!"

"Four people, right side," Gogo says tersely. "Two women. Two men." She leaps agilely out of the now roofless car, landing catlike on the balls of her feet.

Tadashi breathes between his teeth, hurriedly dismounting the car.

_Bwoom._

Another bolt of plasma shoots just past Hiro, who throws himself to the car floor. Tadashi roars angrily, wrenching the backseat open. As he pulls Hiro out of the car, he waves his hands wildly in the air.

"Stop!" he calls. "We're not infected!"

The air goes still. Hiro peers around the edge of his hiding place.

Four figures stand in an even line roughly ten yards in front of their smoking car. Two are men, two are women, and all seem hardened by the Outbreak; their clothes, loose and efficient, are torn and splattered with blood and pus, and various unusual apparatuses are strapped to their arms and legs. Dirt and bruises splay over their harsh, angular features. One of the men is hauling a large cylinder under his arm, which Hiro quickly pinpoints as the source of the plasma fire.

"We're survivors," Tadashi continues pleadingly. Gogo slinks to his side, disc extended. "We're just like you. We don't need to fight."

One of the women hisses. "Let me guess. You're hungry and you know how to cook zombie pot pie?"

Tadashi stares. "What?"

"Khan," says one of the men warningly; he is tall and square with thick eyebrows drawn tightly together.

The woman named Khan bows her head and silently steps back.

"Look, please, let us through. We don't have anything of value," Tadashi says.

The other man, the lanky figure in possession of the plasma cannon, barks in laughter. "Yeah? That's rich, Imperial. We know you've got it. Hand it over."

"Black Genie," the leader says again, with more force.

Black Genie grits his teeth, hands shaking on the plasma cannon, but doesn't move.

Hiro takes a moment to absorb this myriad of information. Just where are all these survivors coming from? He, Tadashi, and Aunt Cass had never encountered anyone over the course of ten years—just razed safecities, and at most, freshly infected corpses. And yet, in the course of three months, they encountered Gogo Tomago, then Wasabi, and now four more survivors.

Maybe Aunt Cass is correct. Maybe the answer to fighting the Outbreak lies in Las Vepporo, and maybe that answer is why there are so many survivors as they approach.

Of course, there are other problems. Clearly, this group is at a technological advantage; Hiro would never admit it willingly, but they have access to materials that he can only dream of. Furthermore, they seem to be unusually hostile. He's never heard the term "Imperial" before, but he's fairly certain that it's nothing good in the current context.

Tadashi raises his hands innocuously, speaking with confidence. "You guys must be mistaken. We don't have anything. I haven't even met you."

"Yes, we can see that from the tracker," Khan says blandly.

"I don't understand what you're saying," Tadashi says, still calm.

Black Genie tightens his grip on the cannon. "Maybe we need to spell it out for you," he spits. "You have something of ours. You need to give it back. If we're feeling nice, we'll let you live."

Tadashi looks to the leader, but the square-jawed man is silent.

"Can you at least tell me what it is?" Tadashi says.

The man says nothing.

"Red Dragon," Khan says quietly.

The man, Red Dragon, stares evenly at Tadashi. "Woman and man, both tall, both with blond hair. Never seen them?"

"Not a clue," Tadashi says. "Honest."

Red Dragon considers this quietly, examining Tadashi's face with a sharp perusal. Finally, he turns away, sweeping his ragged cloak over his shoulders.

"Our first priority is the medkit," he says. "Let's go."

"Sir, the tracking device—" Khan begins, but Black Genie jumps over.

"_Shang_! If it weren't for these"—he says something foreign to Hiro's ears, but most likely crude—"stealing our medkits, Jasmine would've _lived_! She would be alive, she'd be smiling, she wouldn't be—"

"_Tiger Lily_ died because she made a _stupid decision_ without consulting her authorities!" Red Dragon snaps.

"She came back! She was only injured—" Black Genie raises the cannon and Hiro's heart jumps to his throat—

"Put the Launcher down, Genie!" Red Dragon says harshly.

Black Genie stills. His eyes are glassy.

"You wouldn't be like this if it was Mulan," Black Genie says, voice trembling.

Red Dragon says nothing. Khan's mouth opens. Silence reigns.

Then Black Genie whips the cannon and fires.

Right at Tadashi.

(•–•)

**A NOTE**

Strapped on the now-vaporized roof of the car,  
a humble tracking device innocently gleams.

(•–•)

_tbc._


	9. Dissociative

PERCHED ON A LEDGE THAT stretches above the wasteland, Honey Lemon and Fred idly sit by, watching the display before them with indulgent smiles.

"Any bets?" Honey says cheerfully, flicking a morsel from their pillaged sack into her mouth.

Fred is unusually silent, his grip white-knuckled in his shirt. He is smiling, smiling like Honey, but when Honey looks closely, she sees that his smile is empty, like he is painting it over his face.

"Fred," she says quietly.

Fred swallows. "What are we doing, Honey?"

Honey shifts closer to him and slides her hand over his shoulder. Her smile fades into a solemn look. "We're getting closer, Freddie."

Fred stares at his shoes. Honey prompts him with a nudge of her elbow.

"Come on," she says comfortingly. "We need to help these people."

"And then demand a price from them," Fred says coolly.

"Well, naturally." Honey's voice is without humor.

Fred clenches his hands. "We planted that tracker in the first place," he says evenly. "This doesn't seem right."

Honey's lips twist. "We don't live in a world where we can do the right thing."

"So pick the lesser of two evils?"

Her smile widens, but there's a tinge of sadness to it. "Read my mind."

"Always do," Fred says softly.

They fly.

(•–•)

**HONEY LEMON AND FRED**

Once upon a time, there lived  
a boy and girl in a safecity.

The safecity was demolished, and the  
boy and girl had no one but each other.

(•–•)

Gogo has never been able to read humans, but she has always been able to read enemies.

Before Black Genie raised his weapon, the weapon that fired Plasma, she saw how the muscles in his cheek were drawn back and how his hips were dropped into balance and how the rigging from his spine to his shoulders was locked in tension. She saw the brightly-lit eyes, the kind of eyes that she'd seen in zombies when they'd spotted prey, easy prey, and she saw the line in his jaw, a line that demanded blood and vengeance.

Gogo has never been able to read emotion, but she has always been able to read danger.

So when Black Genie sweeps his weapon to Tadashi, she moves before anyone can see. She lunges forward and tackles Tadashi to the ground, flinging her disc with deadeye precision at Black Genie's head. He is blinded by the Plasma. The disc should behead him.

But perhaps Khan is also able to read danger, because Gogo has scarcely released her disc when Khan thrusts her arm forward, and out of nowhere, _nowhere_, Gogo swears, a blade made of light materializes and slices toward her disc, and her disc vaporizes into nothingness.

The Plasma passes easily over her and Tadashi, lazily, almost, disappearing into the horizon. She seizes the pipe from the car, an unbidden smile pulling at her lips.

Finally. A battle. Something she can understand.

Tadashi leaps to his feet with surprising vigor. His eyes are blank, dark—there is no Tadashi behind them. She feels a chill thrum down her spine.

"Gogo," he says clearly, every syllable pronounced with a crisp pop, "tell Hiro to turn the car 93 degrees counterclockwise. He should understand."

If Gogo were a different woman, she would have asked why Hiro had to turn the car 93 degrees rather than 90. If Gogo were a different woman, she would have wondered how the car could possibly be functioning even with its roof blown sky-high. If Gogo were a different woman, she would have shied away from the shadows in Tadashi's face and the unusual tilt to his smile.

But Gogo is Gogo, not a different woman. So wordlessly, obediently, she dashes to the other side of the car, where Hiro is waiting.

"Hiro," she says, but then she notices that something is wrong.

Hiro is huddled against the wheel of a car, arms cradled around his chest, eyes staring unseeingly into the distance. His breath is short and fast, misting quickly over his pale, chapped lips. His fist clenches tightly over his multitool—tight enough to whiten his knuckles, tight enough for the metallic picks of the tool to cut into his palm and draw blood. He groans wordlessly, a distraught child in the center of a cruel world.

"Hiro!" Gogo says sharply.

He does not respond.

She draws back her hand to slap him into reality, but a gentle voice pulls her back.

_Stop. This is not the way. _

She lowers her hand and grips his shoulders.

"Hiro. Look at me."

Hiro whimpers wordlessly, his eyes still caught in unseen nightmares. A vague memory dredges in her mind—a twelve-year-old memory, when she was small and skinny and huddled in the slums of Denveshima, seven years old with nothing but a frisbee salvaged from the city dump.

Shock. Paralyzing, devastating shock.

Gogo grits her teeth, frantically fighting the surfacing flood of memories. Now is not the time. Now is quite possibly the _worst_ time.

"_Mommy—don't leave me—"_

She wildly shakes her head, shoving the voice away—_her_ voice, from twelve years prior.

Hiro. Hiro Hamada.

She quickly releases his shoulders and kneels until he is forced to look her straight in the eye.

"Take a deep breath," she instructs authoritatively.

Hiro automatically sucks air into his lungs. His eyes are glazed, but he is listening to her instruction. Good.

"Count to five," Gogo says. "Then breathe out. Slowly."

Five seconds pass. She hears the vague reverb of the plasma cannon, but doesn't dare break her gaze. Hiro releases a shaky breath; it seems to rattle in his chest as it brushes between his teeth.

"What do you see?" she demands. She tapers off her tone—just how she would have wanted to be spoken to when she was seven and in Denveshima.

Hiro swallows. "Blood," he mumbles. "Lots of blood. Skin stripped off the bone."

"There is no blood," Gogo says quietly. "There are no zombies."

"Not zombies," Hiro blurts. "Faces. Wounds. I... I have a knife in my hand..."

His fingers tighten aggressively against his multitool. Gogo does not blink.

"That is not a knife," she says. "You are holding your multitool."

Hiro falls silent. The plasma cannon rockets in the background. Gogo wants nothing more than to leap over the car and aid Tadashi—surely he cannot fight four trained warriors—but Tadashi gave her a mission, and she must fulfill it. So she sits and waits and looks Hiro in the eye, watching as the mist over his eyes finally begins to subdue.

"They're... they're lunging at 'Dashi, so I don't think, I just throw the knife, and it's so heavy, I think it only goes a foot or two..."

"There is just me and you," Gogo says. "No one else."

Hiro is quiet for a moment. His breathing slows. He warily looks around, as if he has just noticed where he is.

"Oh," he says quietly.

Gogo doesn't give him time to feel guilty or silly. She nods at the car, speaking decisively. "Tadashi wants you to turn this car 93 degrees counterclockwise. Do it quickly."

And Hiro immediately jumps into the car. Satisfied, Gogo vaults over the hood, scanning the surroundings for Tadashi. She finds him entangled with the woman named Khan, desperately dodging the light-blade that sears through the air. She bolts toward the scene, tightening her grip on her pipe.

But another figure darts in front of her—the leader, Red Dragon, ragged cape fluttering in a crimson river over one shoulder, light-blade soaring into being from his knuckles. Even from afar, she can feel the press of its heat.

"We don't have to fight," Red Dragon says. His words are placid, but his expression is cold.

Gogo shifts the pipe in her hands. Its weight is foreign compared to the quiet mass of her disc. "You attacked Tadashi," she says flatly.

Red Dragon circles her warily. "Black Genie is... distraught. The love of his life died."

"He attacked Tadashi," Gogo says, and tiring of the needless dialogue, she flies at Red Dragon with her pipe behind her.

Despite the aggressiveness of her motion, she makes sure that she treads lightly and swings the pipe with caution. The most prominent lesson she has learned from fighting walkers is to never underestimate an enemy—to test, to catalog, to analyze. So she weaves around his light-blade, noticing the slight unbalance on the ball of his left foot, the minute quirk of his right knee, how he turns his hips after every strike to preserve fluidity. She catalogs him thoroughly, then strikes.

She rolls against the ground and jabs heavily at his left ankle with her pipe. He stumbles, but wrenches his light-blade at her; she barely pulls herself away in time. The blade catches the ends of her hair and the burning odor hits her nostrils.

"I'd rather kill a walker than a human," Red Dragon says warningly.

She only lunges again.

His limp is noticeable now, which encourages her; she swings the pipe in full force. He easily saws it in half, but the severed end spins out of momentum, catching him in the jaw. He staggers back, and without hesitation, Gogo slams the end of the pipe over his head. He crumples to the ground, light-blade fizzling out of existence.

Gogo's sense of triumph is cut short by a rending cry in the afternoon heat.

"_Shang_!"

Gogo whips to the source of the voice. Khan, light-blade just inches from Tadashi's throat, jerks away, racing to Red Dragon's side. Worry twists her features into a grotesque mask as she takes in the blood pouring from his head. Seizing the distraction, Gogo bounds to Tadashi, surveying his body for injuries. Thankfully, his only prominent wound is on his arm; a long cut weeps blood down his bicep and into his shirt. Gogo quickly pinpoints its source to a dagger on the ground—Khan's dagger, she presumes. At least it is an ordinary dagger and not a light-blade, or Tadashi's skin would be charred beyond recognition.

Tadashi's eyes rove past Gogo and fix on the car that Hiro has spun (precisely 93 degrees counterclockwise). He surges to his feet like a rag doll pulled by its strings, marching crisply to the side of the car by the energy tank. He is blank and wordless and does not seem to notice the gash in his arm.

"Tadashi," Gogo says. "You're injured."

"Irrelevant information," Tadashi says curtly. His voice is foreign to Gogo. "Will be filed after battle."

He stops in front of the car, turning to the remainder of their assailants.

Black Genie is hunkered on one knee, jabbing furiously at the plasma gun. Red Dragon is a heap on the ground, Khan leaning over him. And... that is it, apparently. Have they won so soon?

A prickle of anticipation creeps up Gogo's spine. There was another woman, she is certain. There was a quiet woman, a woman who was in the background... a woman who is nowhere in sight. She surreptitiously glances around, but Khan suddenly leaps to her feet, demanding attention.

"You," Khan says coldly, "have made a terrible mistake."

Black Genie raises the plasma gun and points it right at the car.

"Have we?" Tadashi says flatly.

Khan does not budge.

"Goodbye," she says. "We won't meet again."

And just as Black Genie's finger tightens on the trigger, Tadashi screams, "_Now,_ Hiro!" and Hiro crushes a button on the car's dashboard and _dives_ out of the car, and suddenly the car _rockets_ toward Khan and Black Genie, racing right into the bolt of plasma that sears through its metal casing and right into its energy tank—

—if it had been just one degree off, it might have missed—

—the car explodes in a bucket of fire, roaring spectacularly to the sky. An unrecognizable scream tears at Gogo's ears; a horrific, unimaginable scream, of pain and loss and despair. But, ever deaf, the fire continues to roar. The fire is merciless.

"_It'll get a little warm, but you'll be alright."_

Gogo swallows quietly, forcing the tears out of her eyes. She turns to Tadashi and Hiro, who stand just behind her.

"Well, there goes our ride," Hiro says weakly.

Tadashi says nothing. His eyes are still cold, and Gogo does not know why.

(•–•)

**DISSOCIATIVE  
****IDENTITY DISORDER**

**Definition:** Creates a separate  
identity to cope with trauma

**Cause:** Recurring, overpowering, and  
often life-threatening disturbances  
during early childhood years

(•–•)

Tadashi's eyes clear from the dim, pulsing blue. He feels the strategies, the analyses, the mantra of _PROTECT PROTECT PROTECT_ dying out of his head as swiftly as it had come. He blinks, willing his memory to return, but there is nothingness. Panic rises in him, panic so hot and sweltering that it constricts around his chest—but then a clear, flat voice cuts through the haze.

"Stop squirming."

He breathes deeply and looks down. He's propped against an old metal crate of some kind, bleeding arm propped up on Gogo's knee. Hiro is hovering over Gogo's shoulder, white-faced.

"What happened?" Tadashi croaks.

Gogo says nothing. Her focus is honed in on the gash in his arm, which she is expertly binding up. Tadashi vaguely recognizes that it's not the professional bind of a textbook doctor—it's tight, efficient, practiced, as if Gogo has developed it through trial and error until she found the best possible way to bind up a cut. Tadashi is not certain how he feels about this.

"We won," Gogo says shortly.

"Won," Tadashi echoes hollowly. He looks to Hiro.

"That guy with the plasma gun fired at you," Hiro says crisply. "Gogo tackled you out of the way. Then, well, you guys all fought for a while. You had me rotate the car until the energy tank was facing them, then baited the plasma guy to fire at you. When he did, I sent the car full throttle towards them. It exploded." He gestures towards a smoking, twisted wreckage on the other side of the road.

Gogo frowns, clearly confused. "You don't have to repeat it," she says tersely. "He was there."

Hiro smiles wryly. "In a manner of speaking," he says.

Gogo looks at Tadashi. Tadashi smiles weakly.

"Thanks, Hiro," Tadashi says. "Did they...?"

"Dead," Hiro says flatly. "At least the plasma guy. You can see his smoking body. Dunno about the others."

Nausea swims in Tadashi's stomach. He leans his head back and closes his eyes.

"I did it," he says brokenly.

"Hey, they would've killed us if you hadn't," Hiro says.

_Think of how painful it was._ The tormenting, agonizing fire, licking and biting at every available square inch of flesh—Tadashi shudders, bile pulsing in his throat. Gogo only surveys the two in silence.

"Yoo-hoo!"

Tadashi opens his eyes at the unfamiliar voice. A tall, slender woman steps out from behind the roadside wreckage, followed by a lanky man. They are remarkably well-dressed—clothes without any rips or tears, shoes that still keep their gleam, notedly contemporary gadgets strapped to their backs and arms and legs. Tadashi does not recognize them.

_More survivors,_ Tadashi ponders.

He notices that the man has a body slung over his shoulder—a lithe form, tanned, with a river of dark hair flowing to the ground. Gogo hisses in recognition and snatches the severed pipe from the ground, pointing it aggressively at the newcomers.

"Whoa," says the man, stepping back.

"Hey, hey, we come in peace," says the woman brightly. She bows with a flourish. It should be friendly, but something about it seems mocking. "I'm Honey Lemon," she says, "and this is Fred."

"Honey Lemon?" Hiro snorts.

"Hey, don't make fun of her," Fred says severely, dumping the body on the ground. "She saved your life." He gestures to the body—a body which Tadashi can't seem to remember, despite his best efforts. "This punk was about to nail a good one into your heads. We took her out before she had the chance."

Tadashi steps forward to examine the body, but Gogo swiftly throws out an arm, stopping him in his tracks. "Don't trust them," she warns. "They could be working together."

"Aww, c'mon," Honey Lemon says with an airy laugh. "You think you'd still be here if we wanted you dead?"

Tadashi sees their guarded smiles and the patronizing cock of their hips and he wants to hate them just as much as he wants to trust them. He looks at Gogo, Gogo who is crouching in front of him, teeth bared, Gogo who is protecting him, Gogo who has kept him from insanity. He trusted Gogo, and it was quite possibly the best decision he ever made.

So he looks at Honey Lemon, looks at Fred, and smiles openly. "Thanks," he says.

Fred blinks, surprised. Honey only evaluates him from head to toe, as if waiting for something.

"What is it?" Tadashi asks.

Honey frowns. "Well, we saved your lives. Sorry, but there's no such thing as a free lunch."

"So...?" Tadashi says, baffled.

"They want a reward," Hiro says flatly.

"You make it sound so heartless," Honey says disapprovingly.

"Isn't it?" Gogo flips the pipe in her hand, narrowing her eyes. "You only saved us because you were looking for some profit? Look. We don't even have anything." She waves her hand at the wreckage of what was once their car.

"But you don't deny that we saved your lives," Honey says calmly.

Gogo snarls.

"Aww, don't snarl at me," Honey says. "You clearly recognize this woman. She was with the guys who attacked you. That means you owe us a life debt. All of you."

Anger, black anger, flickers in the pit of Tadashi's stomach. He fights to strangle it. "So what? Are you going to kill us?"

Honey pastes a hurt look, but Tadashi doesn't believe it. Not anymore. "What? We'd never do something so barbaric. I just want to know..." She leaned forward. "Where are you headed?"

An innocent question. Or so it seems.

"Where do you think?" Hiro injects sarcastically. "There's only one place this road leads, yunno."

"Well, naturally, somewhere in Las Vepporo," Honey says placidly. "My question is _where_."

Hiro looks at Tadashi. Gogo looks at Tadashi. Tadashi gulps.

"Any place that looks like it could hold a cure," Tadashi says.

He expects Honey to burst out laughing, or Fred to chortle, or both of them to count him insane. But instead, Honey and Fred share a quick glance, brows furrowed in consternation. Honey tilts her head. Fred nods ever so subtly.

"Good, then," Honey says. "There's a building in the heart of the city. It's a big lab. Rumor has it that it's where the virus first spread, and it's where the cure was being researched."

"You haven't looked into it?" Hiro says, flabbergasted.

Honey smiles patronizingly. "Freddie?"

Fred lunges forward, clearly eager for his moment in the spotlight. "Beware, Travelers, of the great Danger that lies within the heart of Las Vepporo," he proclaims dramatically with a sweep of his hand. "The problems are twofold: Firstly, multistage walkers prowl the streets, seeking to devour any unfortunate mortal that strays onto its path!"

His alien language throws Tadashi off for a moment. Multistage walkers?

"We can handle zombies," Gogo says flatly, echoing Tadashi's thoughts.

Fred gapes, bewildered. Honey elbows him in the side.

"Start from the beginning, Freddie," she says.

Fred gives a long-suffering sigh, then fixes his gaze on Tadashi.

"The zombies, you know? They're mutating, like way out of whack. They're getting stronger and faster. And the strongest and fastest of them? They're right by the lab. Because, you know, if that's where the virus came from, then the zombies around there have probably been around the longest. Waaaay long." Fred sighs again. "You're gonna need a lot of people to take down those bad boys."

Tadashi hesitates. Maybe he should ask them to help. Maybe he should go out on a limb.

But Gogo speaks before he can, voice as solid as metal. "We can handle ourselves."

Honey looks at Fred. Fred looks at Honey. Honey shrugs. Fred shrugs.

"Suit yourself," Honey says.

They turn to leave, but Tadashi steps forward.

"Uh, thanks for the info," he says. "But... you said there were two problems. One was the mutations. What's the other one?"

Honey's mouth flickers into a smile. She looks at Fred, as if deferring to him for the answer.

Fred tilts an imaginary cap. "Quite simply, good gentleman," he says dramatically, "it is impossible to breach the lab. The exterior was crafted to be indestructible. Why do you suppose it is one of the few buildings that still stands?"

Tadashi swallows. "So... it doesn't matter even if we reach the lab."

"Not quite," Fred says. "You simply need in your party a person with authorization to the lab."

"Krei Laboratories," Honey chimes in. "Remember it, okay?"

They won't be able to find a person with authorization. No way. Most of them, if not all, are probably dead. The few ones that still live are probably secreted away in remote safecities. Nevertheless, Tadashi smiles and nods his head, hiding the dying hope inside him.

"Thanks," he says.

"Oh, no problem," Honey says. Her smile darkens to something dangerous. "After all, now you owe us even more."

She gestures to Freddie and they bound away, leaving the corpse at Tadashi's feet. Silence reigns over the group.

"Yeah, they're missing a few marbles," Hiro says.

(•–•)

**HONEY LEMON AND FRED**

Once upon a time, there lived  
a boy and girl in a safecity.

The First Mutation occurred, and  
the zombies, with their newfound  
might, demolished the safecity.

(•–•)

The moment they're out of sight, Fred's masked smile falls away into a disturbed glower. Honey sighs internally, bracing herself for the upcoming exchange.

"Freddie," she says quietly, "what's wrong?"

Fred's eyes flash. "Honey, didn't you see?" he says pleadingly.

"See what?" Honey says tiredly.

"Four people. Dead. Because of us." Fred winces and lowers his head. "Maybe five, because we took the medkit."

Honey closes her eyes and kneads at her temples, silently counting to ten before she speaks. "Freddie," she says. "We need these. We need anything we can get. We can't do this without resources."

"Yeah, we need resources," Fred says, "but we don't need them this way." He grits his teeth. "This is _brutality_, Honey. We're supposed to be _saving peopl_e."

"You can't save people just by wishful thinking, Freddie!" Honey snaps. "You have to get your hands dirty!"

"Then maybe we should find a different way!" Fred snaps back.

"There _is_ no other way!" Honey sinks to the ground, glaring up at him. "Do you wanna be like my parents, Freddie? Useless? Too wrapped up in their ideals to get anything done?"

Fred falls silent for a long moment. Sensing the dissipating heat, Honey drifts closer, casting her eyes downward.

"If you want," she says, "we can watch over the group."

Fred glances up.

"But, you know, we probably won't find anything," Honey continues.

Fred stares at his hands.

"But, um, maybe we will," she says.

Fred smiles wryly. "It's okay, Honey. You don't have to comfort me. I just..." He sighs, falling flat on his back and looking at the musky sky. "I wish it was easier to be a hero."

Honey is silent for a long moment. Then: "Well, you _care_, Freddie. That probably places you around a 9.9."

Fred jerks up, beaming. "Really?"

"Yup," Honey says with a soft smile. She reaches out ahand. "C'mon. We've got some babysitting to do."

Fred eagerly grasps it.

(•–•)

**CONFLICT MANAGEMENT**

One gets fairly skilled at it when one  
has but one friend in the world.

(•–•)

"Sooo," Hiro says.

They've been walking for a few hours in utter silence with Gogo continuously glancing at Tadashi. Tadashi makes no move to offer an explanation for his sudden personality change, so Hiro doesn't, either. Unfortunately, this means that Gogo is thrown out of the loop.

In all honesty, Hiro doesn't remember when it first started happening. He vaguely recalls a day where Aunt Cass pulled Tadashi aside, speaking in a very low, yet very harsh voice—but he doesn't remember why. All he knows is that whenever they're in danger, Tadashi becomes undefeatable, brilliant, cold—a completely different person than the warm brother he knows so well.

Aunt Cass never told him why it happened. Maybe Aunt Cass didn't know.

"So," Tadashi repeats, drawing Hiro out of his thoughts. "We... have a destination, at least."

"Yup. Krei Labs." Hiro spins his multitool in between his fingers. "Which is, apparently, Disneyland for zombies. And we need some kind of permit."

Tadashi scratches the back of his neck, eyes narrowed in concern. "If we get close enough, you might be able to hack it with your multitool. The problem's the zombies. Maybe we should ask those two for help..."

"No," Gogo says immediately. "We can draw them out, one at a time. They'll fizzle out eventually."

Tadashi considers this quietly for a moment.

"We don't know when the zombies will mutate," he says at last. "If we take too long, they might eventually turn invincible. And... we don't exactly have a lot of time."

The group falls into discouraged silence, plodding forward beneath the harsh rays of the wild sun. An idea pricks the back of Hiro's mind. He stops short, mouth spreading into a mischievous grin.

"Hey, you know what?" Hiro says casually. "I think we know someone who's good at dealing with tons of zombies."

Tadashi's eyes widen. "You mean..."

Hiro grins. "I think it's time to visit our tree-hugging friend again."

(•–•)

**ELEPHANTS IN THE ROOM**

(n.) Obvious problems that are clearly avoided.

(n.) Psychological trauma, terrifying memories,  
and anomalies in behavior that are set aside in  
lieu of more urgent, life-threatening matters.

(•–•)

Deep in the heart of Soudai Junction, a man called Wasabi hunches over his bed, sweat coating his back as moonlight pounds mercilessly against his figure. His eyes roll with terror deep in their sockets and incomprehensible moans peel from his lips. But there is no comfort; no presence. Just the man, his bed, and the haunting night.

"Traore," the man mumbles. "Subject 2. Traore..."

He screeches, an inhuman, keening sound that rends through the uncovered window. Then he stills, fingers clutched tightly around his temples.

"I'll... I'll be a good boy," he wails. "I promise. Promise. Good boy. Good..."

He stops short, then whimpers, drawing his arms to his chest.

"But I... I don't like needles. No. No, _no, NO!"_

And then he drops to the ground. He speaks, but his voice is flat, tinny.

"Hello. I am Baymax. Your personal healthcare companion."

His eyes shut.

There is silence.

His chest stills. His eyelids flutter open and he stares emptily at the ceiling, breathing through his nostrils.

Then he clears his throat and scrabbles to his feet. He spends a moment making his rumpled bed, pushing the ratty covers into perfect folds before slipping back into his sheets.

(•–•)

**NIGHT TERRORS**

Most patients are amnesic from  
the incident the very next day.

(•–•)

_tbc._

* * *

_**(i read every review, even if i do not reply. please consider writing one. they're very encouraging.)**_


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